Maxime de la Rocheterie on Marie-Antoinette

"She was not a guilty woman, neither was she a saint; she was an upright, charming woman, a little frivolous, somewhat impulsive, but always pure; she was a queen, at times ardent in her fancies for her favourites and thoughtless in her policy, but proud and full of energy; a thorough woman in her winsome ways and tenderness of heart, until she became a martyr."

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

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Unless otherwise noted, any books I review on this blog I have either purchased or borrowed from the library, and I do not receive any compensation (monetary or in-kind) for the reviews.

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Monday, September 7, 2015

No longer do we have to obsess over protecting ourselves from an evil
that lives outside of us. The Jews had not received the gift of the
Holy Spirit in Baptism and so their fear of evil was certainly
reasonable and justified. Jesus has defeated that evil and given us the
power to overcome it. No longer do we wash our hands when we
come home from the marketplace in order to purify ourselves. Rather,
Jesus is calling us to be, in Him, a fount of purity for the cleansing
of the secular marketplace.He wants us to imitate him and
walk fearlessly into places (both physically and culturally) that
contain evil influences with total confidence in His power to overcome.
Judaism is inherently defensive in its posture to the rest of the world.
Christianity puts holiness on offense. Christ wants to take over
culture and he wants us to be the agents of this conquest.

I’m not saying that don’t have to know ourselves and be careful about
near occasions of sin. What I am saying is that I think Jesus is
challenging us to consider what our fundamental posture is to the world
outside of ourselves: Is it defensive and fearful? Or is it confident
and on the offense for the Kingdom? The Gates of Hell will not prevail
against us, He told us (Matt 16). That’s an offensive statement. It means that the enemy will not be able to withstand our attack, not that we’ll be able to endure his (as most people strangely interpret that passage). The Church is an army on the march, not a fortified castle! (Read more.)

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